


Nabla: A Triptych

by Anonymous



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Greg House Being an Asshole, Holmes Pastiche, Multi, Pre-Med Students, Slow To Update, Trans Characters, all kinds of internalized issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 13:36:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18918082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: House, as a pre-med student, takes an unnecessary math course, but all the more interesting, in all the hours out of it, is the non-deterministic way in which humans play out in company. There's something to be said for comparing the description of function surfaces/spaces to attempts to understand humans.





	Nabla: A Triptych

**Author's Note:**

> contains some flawed but generally supportive treatment of trans characters by other characters. some internalized homophobia. those sorts of things.
> 
> ~~at different times I have come up with two different treatments for the concept for this fic, although thus far only this one has proved particularly writeable.~~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _**Gradient:** df/dx î + df/dy ĵ etc..., the direction of greatest change of a functional surface_; the one where House realizes she's bi

Wilson is easy to understand, Genevieve thinks. Not even the bump in the road that is "Oh, by the way, I'm trans," changes that.

"Did you know math and physics students score higher on law entry assessments?" she spouts smarmily after the next jello shot. It's...a party of sorts. All bright lights and loud music she doesn't like and altogether too much, and what she doesn't understand right now is why she's here after _James, it's_ James _now_ Wilson. 

Not that she had known him under any other name, other than "Wilson" itself. 

"No? Why are you saying that?" Wilson yells, into the mire of muddy music like detritus after a flood. 

It's an excuse, a stupid one. She's known for...an indefinite number of years that she wasn't going into law. And then calculus proved to be the strange habit she couldn't break, sequences and series and now... surfaces and oriented magnitudes in space in a class she had no use for, valuable brain sectors she'd be better served devoting to O-chem. 

"House?" Wilson's voice barely penetrates the fug. Huh, _penetrates_. She knows how to act pervy. Or like an uninhibited twelve year old. Possibly not the most different of things sometimes.

She drunkenly pulls up the song that digs itself into her brain every day when she chases the patterns, the functions that are surfaces and not just _curves_. And wonders at the parabolic dishes on the single cover. Radio telescopes, looking like some sort of satellite dish for aliens.

_"I'll take your brain to another dimension, I'll take your brain to another dimension. Pay close attention. Pay close attention."_

"We should... go." Wilson mouths into her ear, because there's no way she'd hear him otherwise.

Outside it's dark and the moon is full and there are stars above that she wishes she could forget because they are an uncomfortable reminder of nights in her childhood and also because there's no constellation connecting Betelgeuse and _Yersinia pestis_ or, more usually, horse instead of zebra these days (but that might be completely idiotic as an analogy in the 21st century, unless you're in Amish country) Methicilin Resistant Staph(alococcus Aureus), no matter what horoscopes would say ( _Pisces._ Or is she even one? House isn't good at dates. Of any kind. Anyway, Pisces isn't in the sky right now, light pollution be damned.) and so this is more information her brain clings onto that isn't useful. 

What was it they said Poe died of in high school English, congestion of the brain? 

In both senses, you dingus. 

The inner dialogue is far louder than any of the subtle sounds Wilson is making (breathing or walking or scuffing a shoe on the pavement) or the sounds of cars passing in the dusk. 

"So uh, House," Wilson asks, a little more loudly. He's not that drunk, she thinks. Unjust. "Roommates?"

"Huh? Roommates? I don't have any roommates," she says, exaggerating the sentence and twisting it into extremes as if she thinks it ridiculous.

"No, _us_ ," Wilson sighs, but he puts on a half-lie of a smile not reflected in his eyes, and elaborates "I know it's inconvenient. But since I can't... Since I got thrown out of my intended room."

House shrugs. "Sure. I guess. What's stopping you?" She's an asshole through and through, alright?

"The fact that I barely know you? What, should I have presumed I'd be welcome in your rooms?" James Wilson rolls his eyes. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a _trans man_ and you're just a random fellow student, brilliant, but something of a jerkwad."

"We've been talking to each other for months--" and she abruptly cuts off because her stomach clenches and whirls like a merry-go-round. She bends over reflexively. Too many jello shots? Is she actually going to throw up in front of this guy, who...

The fully formed thought hits her like a blast of air from a sub-zero freezer. Because House isn't into relationships. Fuck-buddies, yeah. "Friends" with benefits, whatever you want to call them, not that she has _friends_. It isn't quite a ...human connection though, and here's this _sentimental_ ...guy acting like they aren't friends which _ought_ to be an accurate presumption but!

House likes him. _Likes_ James Wilson. Not likes likes, probably, but plain ordinary liking is enough.

Which is kind of inconvenient because she spouts objectifying crap straight from the worst frat bro towards women like she's some kind of _truly_ fucked-up lesbian, just because it's a pretty good... defense mechanism.

Aw, _fuck._

Look, House is skinny and angular and not "conventionally attractive" and most _definitely_ an asshole, and hey, if she wants to act like one of the guys, if that deflects from the inconvenience of people _liking_ (really?!) her (as contrasted with rubbing genitals with them), well, then...

The weirdest part of that might be that she's totally, definitely _straight._ No, sirree, this isn't John's sins revisiting themselves upon his kid or any of that suppressed Hawthorne puritan crap. She's just... weirdly guy-like, weirdly unconcerned about everything in the girly sex magazines except for the lingerie shots (...when she doesn't bother wearing anything interesting. She doesn't even need a bra and boy shorts'll do, seeing as she's not going to...buy her underwear in the men's section), for a straight girl.

This is going to be a really weird friendship, er, liking your roommate thing, if it consists of bonding over objectifying women...especially when James Wilson almost certainly doesn't. He just doesn't seem the type.

Speaking of Wilson... "House." He's... irritated? impatient? College involves a lot more _people_ than she'd like and that results in House getting drunk to take a Gaussian blur shot of the chaos and get buried in her own spaghetti train yard head. "Are you okay?" he asks, like he's concerned but also not eager to get involved.

Great. Now he's _caring_ about her.

She puts on a winning, slightly pathetic grin, now looking up at him from her vomit-ready crouch. "Fine. Just dandy." She straightens up. "I'll just go up to my... _our_ room and sleep off the... _Vodka jelloformes_ "

The joke doesn't hit, evidently, because Wilson only looks strangely at her and suddenly drops to his own knees, retching.

...probably nerves. He's...a bit larger of a person than House, hadn't drank enough to down a 100-pounds-soaking-wet never-drank-before freshman (inebriate, yes. Knock out? Nah, not off one shot.), and wasn't acting drunk, but sure, probably ...coming out (she supposed it was) could affect people as much as, say, public speaking.

House's policy is she doesn't watch people throw up, she doesn't do the pat on the shoulder it'll-be-alright thing. But, because she _likes_ Wilson, she hands him a tissue she had in her pocket to clean up. It's not the best tissue, linty and crumpled, but he ruefully mutters "Thanks" as he sits down on the grass. 

House strides off towards her, well, soon to be _their_ dorm room. It's only then it occurs to her that, besides the "bonding doesn't work very well if half the people aren't into the activity" thing, it might make Wilson uncomfortable that she's A)into sleeping with guys B)objectifies women, seeing as, by some logic (if not House's internal heuristic, and she thinks James Wilson would probably rather not see it that way, either) someone _might_ think of him as fitting into both...

Bah. She doesn't want to _sleep_ with James Wilson.

House chugs a glass of water in hopes of improving the likely hangover, brushes her teeth, and pulls on a big old t-shirt she uses for sleeping. 

She hears Wilson come in and sneaks a peek at her new roommate (she hadn't had one before), sees him looking forlorn in the moonlight through the shitty curtains. She hadn't had a roommate before, and he didn't bring...no, wait, he did, but apparently he's too _courteous_ to make his bed while she's "trying to sleep" so he just curls up with a blanket and pillow on the other dorm mattress. He looks puppy-dog innocent in his sleep. 

(tbc)


End file.
